IOGEAR USB 2.0 Print Server, 1-Port GPSU21 (Silver) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)The print server hardware worked fine, but the setup software
caused a few problems as a result of oversimplication.

I was able to get the server going with a Brother HL-5150D USB
printer on a home network with 4 computers (3 wireless, 1
ethernet), an all-in-one networked device and the USB
printer itself. This is using a mixture of computers with
different flavours of Windows XP. The print server is wired to
a router using DHCP. I did not chose to put the print server on
a static address (as the manual prefers) since that does not
reflect my network setup (home networks are usually DHCP).
I encountered problems because:
(a) My software firewall first caused the installer to crash.
I wanted to avoid turning it off entirely, but
to no avail. I was able to leave my router's hardware
firewall on but had to turn off my software firewall
for the installation. The manual asks that firewall
be turned off at installation, but I find that drastic.
I guess I should have cut off my internet connection when
I did this.
(b) I installed my printer drivers and print server back-to-back
without rebooting the computer in between. The manual
allows for this but I was not able to avoid the "the
segment of the print server is different from your
computer" error no matter what I tried. So I rebooted
and started the print server install a second time over.
Worked fine. The manual's guidance for this error was
incorrect in my case.
So, if what I've learned applies:
(i) install the printer driver as a normal USB
printer on your computers first.
(ii) reboot the computers
(iii) install the print server software.

Did this for all computers on the network, and
now I can print from anywhere (note that I did not
reconfigure the print server hardware each time, only
on the 1st computer, but I don't see the harm if one
does it for each computer as long as one is consistent
in placing the same settings each time).
(c) The installation of the print server software caused
my printer settings to go from "Use Printer Online"
to "Use Printer Offline". My printer swallowed all
my jobs because of that and no pages were coming out.
To remediate this go to the "Control Panel", "Printers",
"Viewed my installed printers",
right click the printer and select "Use Printer Online".
Did this for all computers.
Everything worked after that, with all firewalls reenabled.
Some day in the future, the network will go down
(power outage or other), and DHCP router might
assign a different dynamic IP address for the print server.
If that is the case, I'll have to point my computers to the
new IP address. To findout what your computer thinks the
printer address is: "Control Panel", "Printers",
"View installed printers", right click the printer and
select "Properties". Select the "Ports" tab,
then "Configure Port". Then compare the IP against the
new address your router gave to the print server
(go to your router's web page to find out). If they don't
match then you'll need to reconfigure. That said, I tested
a new IP address on the print server by power cycling it.
I then rebooted the computers and found that the new print
server address had been matched automatically on my
PCs. So things can fix themselves even if the network goes
down (the name of the port was still had the old address,
but the actual address it used was the new one...)
I've not tried this with IPP printing (remote location
printing, not did I test it under Linux or Mac).
The print server's web access is rather primitive.
But it has all I need. I intend to use this with Linux too.
The device worked as advertised and I am satisfied with it.


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Airlink101 AMPS230 Multi-Functional Print Server Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)UPDATE:
I initially wrote a glowing review of this print server and gave it five stars, but now, I took everything back and rate it one star. The thing simply could not maintain a connection. There are six computers on our network sharing a printer through this print server. All of them run Windows 7, and all of them have the same problem. The printer would frequently go "off-line", or into some other disconnected status and became unaccessible. Sometimes running the PS-Link program to make a manual connection would solve the problem, and sometimes the only solution is to unplug the power and restart the print server.
Actually, I did notice the unreliability in the beginning when I used dynamic IP address for this print server, but I thought the problem was fixed by switching to manual IP address. It was not. It was just better, but still extremely unreliable.
No, you can't live with something like this. It would be insane.
I subsequently bought a TRENDnet TE100-P21. So far, it is maintaining a connection with every computer on the network. I shall observe it longer and see what happens. The setup was even simpler. Besides, the TRENDnet has two USB ports plus a parallel port, in contrast to a single USB port of the Airlink.
Anyway, the following is the original review I wrote. Everything I wrote is still true (because I wasn't aware of any unreliability at the time), and may still be useful information for someone who is interested in investing. I was glad to get rid of it.
THE ORIGINAL REVIEW:
BACKGROUND:
I hesitated to buy it due to lack of user reviews. But glad I bought it. This thing is so much better than my 5 years old D-Link printer server which was four times as expensive. The D-Link had terrible design, requiring extremely confusing user setup. I'm highly experienced in networking, but it took me many hours to figure out the D-Link Print Server. I later wrote an review to detail the procedure of setting up the D-Link Print Server, and guess what, every time when I needed to set up the print server again, I had to consult to my own writing because the thing was so complicated and illogical that there is no way that you can remember how to do it.
PROS:
With that background, you can imagine how delighted I was to set up this tiny Airlink101. It took less than 10 min. altogether. And I did not even read the instructions. All you need to do is The following steps:
(1) hook up the print server with your router (or access point or switch depending on where you at the network) and with a computer on the network;
(2) install the programs that come with the print server; And
(3) start PS Link (one of the two installed programs)and click the link button shown in the window, and you're done.
There is no confusing port setup, no confusing distinction between local printer and network printer, and even more confusing distinction between printer IP address and the printer name, all the terrible junk thrown at you by the D-Link. Compared to this little print server, the D-Link was outright incompetent engineering.
On my computers running Windows 7, it didn't even require me to go to the Windows control panel to add a printer. After I did the above 3 steps, I felt good and said to myself, now, all you need to do is go to the control panel to add a printer. I was a bit anxious of the distinction between adding a local printer and network printer (which was such a headache with the D-Link). But when I got to the control panel, I noticed that the printer was already there. And I tested it and it worked. This may be because the printer driver was already installed on my computer.
If you are installing a new printer, you might need to run PS Wizard (the other one of the two programs installed with the CD came with the print server). That is where you install the printer driver.
You may want to log onto the configuration to set up a few things such as password. But for just printing, if you do the above three simple steps, you are done.
CONS:
The only complaint I have about it is that it can network only one printer. I'm planning to buy another one because I have two printers that need to be networked.
TIPS:
(1) Based on my experience, I concluded that for this print server to work reliably, you must set it on manual IP and also manually preserve a static IP for it on your router. I used DHCP first. It connects easily, but it could not stay connected. It required frequent "re-linking" of the printer. Once I switch to static IP, everything seem to work well.
(2) If you are installing a new printer, you might need to run PS Wizard That comes with it.
(3) Remember, you need to install the print server software on every computer on the network that you want to use the network printer. The installation takes just a few minutes. Couldn't be simpler.
(4) Note also that they make a wireless version of this print server too. But I bought the non-wireless one because I connect the print server through the ethernet port of a bridge which has a wireless connection to the router.


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